Count the inventory one more time

Dealing in physical goods, inventory is so so so important. I cannot stress enough how critical this is. One shirt missing turns into 5 customer orders that can't be fulfilled, which turns into refunds, hate comments on socials, lost future customers, tax issues, etc. etc. And then somehow you end up with stacks of XXL you can't easily sell, tying up cash that could be reinvested in growth.

Not good.

At a small scale it's easy to know what you have. Especially if you move product in and out pretty quick. Just look at your shelves and see what's what.

But scale up and you will need to upgrade how you do inventory. Same thing with shipping into 3PLs. Same thing with auditing your factory. Same thing with tracking units from the blanks company to screenprinting to your warehouse, etc. etc.

Good inventory management = higher profits. Losses reduced. Invoices checked for accuracy. And most importantly, product turns quicker into sales and the business can handle more SKUs and more orders.

How to do this right?

Count. The. Inventory.

And then count it again. And again. And again.

Your main inventory system of record is the foundation of truth. Shopify / ERP like Cin7 or Thrive or similar needs to be regularly audited with a full count.

I like to run a monthly count cycle at the end of the month, which aligns nicely with closing the books in the first week of the new month.

Inventory counts give accounting a good understanding of what's on the balance sheet, and in turn, that gives good information back to the rest of the team to make purchasing decisions, run forecasts, do collection planning, etc. etc.

As long as you have a good digital record of inventory that reflects reality, you are grounded. All that is needed then is to track what comes in and out and you'll be close enough in the day to day to your counts that you can operate well.

From there:

• Run intake on new inventory the same day it comes in
• Track all inventory out, including promo pieces or items given to friends and family – easy to run as custom sales with discounts

Do that and your internal records are solid. Inventory payments get closed out quickly and accurately. Orders don't have to be canceled. There isn't excess inventory lying around at the end of the week. Etc. etc.

Inventory is your rock, and it is valuable, you spent a lot of money and time and effort to get it! Make sure you know what you got.